Hello everyone and welcome to Mental Health Monday! This is a weekly installment that I hope catches on and becomes a series that others feel comfortable enough to participate. And hopefully, bring more attention to dealing with mental health. If you’re curious and would like to participate head over to Mental Health Mondays guideline page.

Antibiosis |an·ti·bi·o·sis : Antagonistic association between organisms to the detriment of one of them or between one organism and a metabolic product of another.

This word has been on my mind a lot lately because I think it aptly describes how I view my anxiety and depression. I suspect some of you understand what I’m getting at but others are staring at their screens wondering what I’m talking about. The words been on my mind for a while but what really sparked the inspiration for this week’s MHM was a tweet from Girly_Juice

Seeing this tweet made me realise that viewing my anxiety and depression in an adversarial manner, Or another person like Girly_Juice puts it isn’t just some random personal quirk of mine. Separating out my anxiety and other issues and giving them some sort of identity, be that a personality or simply an adversary helps to give me some form of control over those actions.

Then I can reject those actions, “Goddammit! I wanted to say yes to that invitation!”. Some may view this as an unhealthy internal relationship to have but I disagree, When this happens it gives me a small goal or work towards, “Next time I’m going to accept an invitation!” or “Next time I’ll tell the server this isn’t what I ordered”. Small goals have literally kept me alive, And while in the long run, it might not be an entirely healthy thing to be doing, I’ll deal with that then…With small goals.

My anxiety and I operate in an antibiotic relationship, We are a constant hindrance to one another. The best I can hope for is it turns out like any classic media in which the protagonist prevails over their adversary.